The “maestro” inside the machine

Dreams of immortal beings or even the many writings on vampire figures that live ad-eternum are featured vastly on fictional literature. Without aiming to delve into any religion branch or bringing up atheist theories, the facts show that each human being remains on this earth for a certain number of years. Whilst living, many have asked the question of who is the maestro inside the machine, the control centre that ensures that our hearts beat a certain number of times per day, our blood circulates internally and that the food we eat nourishes our inner organs. The complexity of our internal system has only been partially framed by the medical institution, which can provide “body fixtures” only to a certain extent. When entering the field of the mind, the so-called black-box of the human being, assumptions become susceptible to interpretations.

What Sigmund Freud has to say

One of the most prominent figures in psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, versed vastly on the three components of what he called the psyche’s structural model: the id, the ego and the super- ego. According to Freud’s model the id was the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego, the organized, realistic part; and the super-ego playing the critical and moralizing role. The id refers to the unorganized part of the personality structure, which contains the basic drives – it acts according to the “pleasure principle”, seeking to avoid pain or displeasure aroused by increases in instinctual tension. Being the unconscious by definition, “It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learned from our study of the dream-work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of that is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations… It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle.”

Centuries before Freud unveiled his paradigmatic conclusions to this concept, an ancient civilization – the Egyptians – used to gather entire communities in one room where the main holy entity would conduct long sessions of mass trance as a way to address body and mind ailments.

No instruction manual

Throughout history, many theoreticians have versed on the subjects of the mind and the inner entity that keeps each of us alive. The question that immediately arises is whether there is in fact an inner self that somehow manages all internal processes together with our daily energy levels and health state. The inner self, the maestro inside the machine has not yet been quantifiable or presented in an auditorium for detailed analysis. Just like a black box analysis type much has been done, research wise, to try to understand its own working mechanism. Unlike ordinary machinery, the brain-core that controls all the inner functions did not come with an instruction manual.

About Sage Vita

Sage Vita, which means a life of wisdom, advocates a lifestyle that will enable us to live not only longer but also well and to engage in lifelong learning and with the world around us. It does not give prescriptions but provides guidelines and information along a number of dimensions - including physical, mental, spiritual, social, and financial, for each of us to create our own unique Sage Vita lifestyle.